Come to bother again. I'm still translating H. Rider Haggard's "A Tale of Three Lions", nearly finishing it. And there are two words that I don't understand. Seems like they are both words of African language.

knobnose:

The other man, or rather lad, Jim-Jim, was a Mapoch Kaffir, or Knobnose, and even in the light of subsequent events I fear I cannot speak very well of him.

I found an entry in Google books: "Ba-Hlengwe (Knob-nose ), inland plains between Limpopo and Sabi basins". I checked "Ba-Hlengwe" on Google Translate and it shows "redeemed". I tend to think that "Knobnose" means a "redeemed black man", but still not sure.

Inkoos:

'Lion, Inkoos,' he whispered, 'lion!'

'Yes, Inkoos,' he answered, 'she has certainly gone away.'

Looks like it's some sort of interjection but I don't know its exact meaning.

Inkoos sounds more like Kemosabe to me! At least that is what I would have taken it to mean from your quotes.

As for the other, "Kafir" is of course extremely offensive and I apologise to anyone reading this, but obviously the book was written at a time when it was not quite so. Mapoch appears to be a village or district of South Africa. http://www.ndebelevillage.co.za/

The Portuguese at Lourenco Marques distinguished between intrusive Vatua or Nguni-speakers and the indigenous Landims, a practice that has led some historians to view the terms 'Tsonga' and 'Landim' as synonymous.[16] In the Transvaal, East Coast immigrants were given various general labels by the people with whom they came into contact, such as 'Knobnoses', given to them by Europeans because of the distinctive nasal cicatrization practised by some of the coastal peoples, ...........

The cultural boundaries first defined and established by missionary anthropologists at the turn of the century have been extrapolated back into the past by historians who see 'the Tsonga' as a primeval ethnic group occupying a large part of south-east Africa. This static approach to the concept of ethnicity has led to a great deal of historical imprecision such as the extension of the geographically limited observations of shipwrecked Portuguese mariners to embrace all 'the Tsonga' or to see 'the Tsonga' in nineteenth century Mozambique as being dominated by the Gaza Nguni.[31] The use by historians of generic terms such as 'Gwambas' and 'Knobnoses' is similarly imprecise.[32]Source: Missionaries and the Definition of the 'Tsonga Tribe'.

Although locations were first envisioned in 1853, legislated for in 1876 and entrenched in the Pretoria Convention of 1881, it was only in 1892 that a 'Knobnose location' was delineated in recognition of services rendered to the state by Albasini's government auxiliaries. Despite its name, this reserve was settled by a conglomeration of Venda and Tsonga-speaking chiefs and commoners living in the Spelonken and, as the location was unhealthy and deficient in water, most people preferred to squat as tenants on surrounding white-owned farms. Source: Exclusion, Classification and Internal Colonialism: The Emergence of Ethnicity Among the Tsonga-Speakers of South Africa. by Patrick Harries

.. dohle I'm with Bob on Inkoos .. in the book, Tales of Allan Quatermain and Others by H. Rider Haggard there is an interchange from p 163 onwards between a native woman and a white man .. in that interchange she calls him Inkoos in a deferential manner when speaking ..

.. in the book, Black Heart and White Heart by Henry Rider Haggard there is a similar exchange between a native woman and a white man where she calls him Inkoos .. in another place a Zulu warrior has a conversation with a white man and says, "... but I cannot call you Inkoos because you are not my chief, or any man's." ..

.. you can google the books and search them .. but it does seem that it is an honorific given to white men by natives ..